A Whole Lot of What — Deadpool

Deadpool, produced for the PC by High Moon Studios, might win the award for most aptly named game of the year. It was about Deadpool. It was like Deadpool: over the top, occasionally funny, and upon close inspection, actually pretty messed up.

Playing the game is fun…ish. By which I mean it’s fun some of the time. Mostly when I’m glitching out on invisible walls or getting punched through nothingness which is supposed to be a wall. There seems to be a lot of half-done content in the game — invisible boundaries, crannies where I can easily get stuck, and objects which are bigger than they appear on the screen. Another thing that I have to do before I can get down to enjoying the game is rebinding all the controls to be not-stupid. The default key settings they give sometimes seem designed to be counter-intuitive (Who puts the ‘use’ key in an action game on ‘U’?) But, putting all that aside, killing baddies is quite a bit of fun. The combo system allows for surprisingly smooth blending of melee and ranged attacks and the special supers unlocked by building up the combo meters are fulfilling to use. There is a stealth kill system, but it fells a little forced in and I still don’t have the hang of it. I can’t get a grasp on what determines when stealth mode is active, what constitutes being ‘seen’ by an enemy, and what I can still do without being exposed. This all makes it hard to mix into my playstyle. Despite the flaws, it’s only really a bother during the one section of the game which requires its use, but it’s still a little annoying.

Like much Deadpool media, Deadpool brakes the fourth wall quite often. I suppose it has to go out of the game for its content, as the story within the game is slim enough fit on the back of a cereal box. The general plot line is: track down the big bad and kill him. That’s it. The game doesn’t spend much time on that and is much more concerned with constantly reminding the player that they are playing a Deadpool game, which it does at least once every five minutes, if not more. The breaking of the fourth wall is done well a few times, like when the game changes from its third-person style to a top-down adventure style calling back to classic titles. Beyond those, though, the game breaking the fourth wall doesn’t seem to have a purpose beyond being an incredibly tired joke. For me, that makes it feel empty, meaningless, and after the third hour of it, tiresome. But tiresome is a way to describe a lot of the game, including its humor. There are occasional funny moments, but much of the humor is overly crude or trying too hard to be wacky and it comes off as boring. There really isn’t anything clever to the jokes, which is something I really look for in humor.

As far as the sights and sounds of the game went, Deadpool is decent. The voice acting has some well-done performances and the sound effects are pretty good. Sometimes the backgrounds look a little flat, but beyond that the game’s appearance is average.

Deadpool is a game where you probably know going in whether or not you’ll like it. If you’re a fan of Deapool, you’ll enjoy it as you’re getting exactly what it says on the box. If you aren’t, you’re getting a mediocre game that gets old quickly. Unless you’re a fan of the Merc with a Mouth, save yourself the money on this one.